There's a certain degree of skill involved when doing certain activities inside the game. When you do certain activities inside the game, you meet individuals doing similar activities to yours.

Skill? I never played city of heroes before, but in most mmo's I've encountered, skill is irrelevant. Whoever wins is whoever has the best items, highest level, or most devastating abilities - all of which come about from playing the game and building your character. In otherwords, progress-quest. And plenty of mmo's are progress quests at their core. What makes them more exciting than a progress bar and a level count is the rich world to explore, the camaraderie of being in a guild, the fun of defeating real life enemies.... in other words, the IRC like aspects of play.

Maybe I'm a bit biased because I don't follow the NBA. I only know in the recreational games I've participated in, Full Court press (or any odd tactic for that matter) gets you dissed a lot. I played a lot of boxball in high school, and tactics like the overhand spike had the same stigma attached.

Some of the tactics used by this researcher remind me of the full court press in basketball. The rules of basketball allow a full court press, yet to do so never crosses the mind of most players. Playing one side of the court at a time is convention. The full court press is extremely effective, yet if you use it, the other team will no doubt call your win "cheap".

Still, when you are the underdog, and must win at all costs, the press is your only option. I sympathize with those who use it (and recognize that it isn't easy to pull off either).

If people complain that a tactic is cheap, it's really not the fault of the player, but the fault of the game. Past slashdot postings are full of examples where players exploited loopholes in city of heroes (remember the article about player-created missions?). With this in mind, I think it's obvious that City of Heroes was poorly designed to begin with. Game designers should never assume players will be on their best behavior.

Mark Cuban heard that Chris Anderson and Malcom Gladwell were arguing about businesses giving things away for free, and felt jealous because nobody was paying attention to him, so he decided to complain.